Remember that small but mighty prairie burg firing on all cylinders, setting growth records in population and job creation, with a booming housing market to match?

That Saskatoon is gone — replaced by a city in downshift.

Just ask Aaron Carter, a 30-year-old journeyman plumber from Biggar. Last December, he launched a job search within a 200-kilometre radius of his hometown, including Saskatoon. Over the next three months he applied for more than 50 jobs, and got no offers.

“I’d say it’s flooded in Saskatoon for plumbers. I see a new plumbing truck just about every single day or every time I turn around the corner,” Carter said. “There are people out there who have the tickets and want to do the plumbing work, but I mean, not everyone can do it all in one area. It’s impossible.”

His solution was to set up his own plumbing business and take on referral work from an established Saskatoon company. He does small service calls the company is too busy to handle.

Now, other plumbers are asking him if he’s hiring. He tells them he doesn’t have enough ongoing work.

Meanwhile, Carter is not counting solely on his plumbing work to make a living. He hopes to sell custom-made tools for the plumbing trade. He has also designed a periscopic shovel, intended for drivers to tuck away in their cars, and is working on specialized watchband designs.

Carter is not the only tradesperson scraping for a buck right now, as some observers can attest.

“Two years ago, if you needed trades work done you would be waiting six months. Now it’s like, ‘Can I come over this week?’ ” ReMax agent Wayne Grier said.

Garnet Greer, business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 529, estimates a quarter of his membership is out of work right now.

He fears it could get worse before it gets better. Larger projects such as the city’s new bus barns have kept some of his members busy, but Greer said he expects that work to dry up by year’s end.

When the economy gets tight, the first thing to go is construction, he lamented, adding “We’re kind of getting hit with a perfect storm” — a simultaneous drop in prices for oil, potash and uranium, all of which are key drivers of Saskatoon’s economy.

Meanwhile, the tightening job market is leading to cutthroat competition for smaller commercial projects, according to Greer. He said out-of-province workers are coming in and working for lower pay. He could not say exactly how much lower, “but it is substantial,” he said.

Recent numbers confirm what the closing storefronts and proliferating “for rent” signs suggest: an economic slowdown in Saskatoon. Sask Trends Monitor reports an estimated unemployment rate of 6.7 per cent for 2016, up from 5.6 per cent last year and 4.2 per cent in 2014. It also reports a slip in the number of people with jobs in Saskatoon, an estimated drop of 0.9 per cent this year.

(The above figures are taken from Statistics Canada data, and refer to the Saskatoon metropolitan area, including surrounding bedroom communities such as Warman and Martensville.)

Those numbers are similar to recent figures from RBC Economics. It says out of 27 major Canadian cities, Saskatoon still ranks No. 1 for population growth (a 2.1 per cent year-over-year increase in the number of adults), but the number of jobs has slipped by 0.3 per cent.

For job growth, that puts Saskatoon 19th in the rankings. It ranks 11th for housing starts.

(Figures are from the Oct. 7 Canadian City Trends report.)

In its recent third quarter update, the Saskatoon Regional Economic Development Authority (SREDA) kept its rating for the Saskatoon Region’s economy at a tepid “C.”

After a dozen years of above-average performance, Saskatoon is now slipping into “average” territory, he said.

When asked if the boom is over, Smith-Windsor allowed that “might be true for Saskatchewan” but added “there’s nothing telling us that there’s no growth in Saskatoon’s future.”

However, the once-brisk pace of housing construction has slowed — especially for duplexes, apartments and townhouses.

In its most recent housing market reports for Saskatoon and area, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) said there is “strong evidence of overbuilding.” In August, 546 multi-units were completed but unsold — more than twice the five-year average and three times the ten-year average.

That is despite a 24 per cent drop in multi-unit starts in the first eight months of the year, from the same period last year.

Chris Guerette, CEO of the Saskatoon & Region Home Builders Association, acknowledged “the industry just overshot a bit” and predicted it will take a couple of years for multi-units “to clear.” She attributed the weakened demand to falling commodity prices making people more cautious about home purchases.

For single-detached houses, CHMC says after a 37 per cent drop in starts last year, activity this year has remained level. Guerette concurred that single-detached home construction is holding steady this year, saying builders are ending the year “pleasantly surprised” that people are still buying.

Meanwhile, CMHC gives a pessimistic forecast for employment this year — a 1.3 per cent decline “representing the first contraction since 2011.”

On the brighter side, it predicts employment growth of one per cent in 2017 and 1.5 per cent in 2018 “due to modestly higher commodity prices.”

In other words, it will take more than a year to recoup this year’s job losses.

Perhaps it’s no surprise then that former mayor Don Atchison campaigned for re-election on the slogan “keep Saskatoon working.” The phrase could just as easily be interpreted as a reference to jobs as to effective civic operations.

In any event, what does a weakened economy mean for the City of Saskatoon’s much-discussed growth plan? It is time for a redraft?

“Yes” is the blunt assessment of University of Saskatchewan economics professor Eric Howe, who disputes the notion that Saskatoon will ever grow to half a million people.

“It’s a certainty that we won’t,” Howe said. “Saskatchewan’s economy is oriented toward exports of resources, and resource employment will not support a population of that size.”

He does not expect the combined populations of Saskatoon and Regina to surpass that of Winnipeg, which is both Manitoba’s capital and site of the province’s largest university. Winnipeg’s current population sits around 720,000 — slightly more than 800,000 for the metropolitan area.

Worse, Howe sees potential for Saskatoon’s population to slip. He attributes the most recent increase to a natural lag behind job losses. If those jobs are not replaced, workers will leave for work elsewhere, he said.

About six years ago, construction became the third largest employment sector in the province, and “unless the economy is continuing to grow, employment in construction is going to go down,” Howe said.

As for the provincial economic boom, “if it’s not over right now, it’ll be over a year from now,” he predicted.

The litmus test will be whether the province’s share of Canada’s population declines; that’s Howe’s favoured definition of an economic bust.

Since Saskatoon’s economy is similarly tied to the fate of resources industries, expect an end to the boom here, too, he said.

So far, there are no forecasts of a sudden and rapid rebound in the prices of oil, potash and uranium. Given Saskatchewan’s history of an economic boom about once every quarter century, Howe said we may have to wait until the early 2030s for the next one.

However, he said Saskatchewan’s indigenous people are not inclined to move out of the province in search of jobs, generally speaking.

Howe said those who stay in Saskatoon “will want jobs,” but he was at a loss to suggest where those jobs will come from.

Saskatoon’s new mayor, Charlie Clark, says the city’s indigenous population could be one of the greatest opportunities for growth, since indigenous economic development “has seen the greatest GDP growth of any sector of the economy in Canada, as I understand it.”

He is also looking to the talent and entrepreneurial drive of recent immigrants, along with young people who launched their careers elsewhere and then returned to raise families here, Clark said.

“The whole picture is going to mean that we will have to really roll up our sleeves and come together between the university, the business stakeholder groups, the provincial government, groups like Innovation Saskatchewan and SREDA, and really identify where are the biggest opportunities for us to see more economic growth, and good jobs, manufacturing jobs, value-added jobs.”

Clark said he sees progress already taking place in food processing, where, for example, companies are creating new ingredients from pulse crop extracts.

“Perhaps this slowdown will cause us to have to dig deeper and drive some further innovation, but I’m committed to working with the talent in the city to do that.”

Changing the culture at city hall from “gatekeepers” bent on applying rules to “problem-solvers” helping companies overcome barriers to setting up or expanding here is also part of his game plan, he said.

He remains confident that construction will continue, partly fuelled by federal dollars, to replace aging water and sewer pipes, build overpasses, even upgrade existing recreation facilities.

As for the growth plan, Clark asserts that whether or not the city reaches a population of half a million — and how soon — is not really the point.

“It may be that there’s a slowdown in new growth and development, but it doesn’t change the imperative to prepare and plan in a different way about how to manage that growth and prioritize our investments,” he said.

Essential to all of this is keeping up Saskatoon’s storied quality of life, so people will want to stay and contribute.

Job cuts affecting Saskatoon and area in 2016

-Closure of Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems manufacturing division this fall; 150 jobs lost at Saskatoon plant.

-Shutdown of Cameco Corp.’s Rabbit Lake uranium mine in April; 500 jobs lost at mine site; unspecified number of jobs at company headquarters cut in October.

-Layoff notices issued at Mosaic Co.’s Colonsay potash mine in mid-July, throwing 330 people out of work until January.

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